As brief note on my critique below
- I
have attempted to breakdown each
paragraph of Orwell's original text and then immediately inserted my personal
interpretations of Orwell’s symbolism from the previous paragraph. Improvements
or other interpretations would be gratefully received.

IT WAS A BITTER WINTER.
The stormy weather was followed by sleet and snow, and then by a hard frost
which did not break till well into February. The animals carried on as best they
could with the rebuilding of the windmill, well knowing that the outside world
was watching them and that the envious human beings would rejoice and triumph if
the mill were not finished on time

Chapter
VII opens with a clear parallel to the 1932-33 Famine with a bleak winter and
that the Soviets were aware that the western world was eager to see the USSR
fail in its Five-Year Plan.

Out of spite, the human
beings pretended not to believe that it was Snowball who had destroyed the
windmill: they said that it had fallen down because the walls were too thin. The
animals knew that this was not the case. Still, it had been decided to build the
walls three feet thick this time instead of eighteen inches as before, which
meant collecting much larger quantities of stone. For a long time the quarry was
full of snowdrifts and nothing could be done. Some progress was made in the dry
frosty weather that followed, but it was cruel work, and the animals could not
feel so hopeful about it as they had felt before. They were always cold, and
usually hungry as well. Only Boxer and Clover never lost heart. Squealer made
excellent speeches on the joy of service and the dignity of labour, but the
otheranimals found more inspiration in Boxer's
strength and his never-failing cry of ‘I will work harder!’

The
second paragraph alludes to west not believing that Trotsky (Snowball) was to
blame for any failings in the Five-Year Plan – the plan itself was flawed -
though the Soviet people were still to believe otherwise.

'Build
the walls' refers to Soviet grain exports being increased in order to pay for
Industrialisation in the midst of severely low grain prices, during the world
depression of the early thirties.

Again
the winter was bad, but work went on with the spring sowing – but hunger was now
prevalent and ‘cruel
work’
perhaps relates to forced labour in Siberia and elsewhere… The rank and file
party faithful, represented by Boxer and Clover carried on regardless.

Squealer
(or the newspapers PRAVDA / IZVESTIA) put a good spin on the results of Collectivisation often
highlighting individuals for special praise within their columns.

In January food fell short. The corn ration was
drastically reduced, and it was announced that an extra potato ration would be
issued to make up for it. Then it was discovered that the greater part of the
potato crop had been frosted in the clamps, which had not been covered thickly
enough. The potatoes had become soft and discoloured, and only a few were
edible. For days at a time the animals had nothing to eat but chaff and mangels.
Starvation seemed to stare them in the face.

In
January, famine was widespread; food was taken away from the peasants to keep up
grain exports for hard cash. In exchange the party proclaimed that the workers
would be given potatoes instead but due to the fact that un-skilled farmers used
incompetent farming methods even the potato crop failed.

The peasants were forced to eat scraps of anything – Enter the word ‘Starvation’
which was seen as inevitable.

It was vitally necessary to conceal
this fact from the outside world. Emboldened by the collapse of the windmill,
the human beings were inventing fresh lies about Animal Farm. Once again it was
being put about that all the animals were dying of famine and disease, and that
they were continually fighting among themselves and had resorted to cannibalism
and infanticide. Napoleon was well aware of the bad results that might follow if
the real facts of the food situation were known, and he decided to make use of
Mr Whymper to spread a contrary impression.

Here, 'human beings' is a definite reference to Gareth Jones in Animal
Farm...First, take a look at this following sentence from Eugene Lyons'
book, 'Assignment in Utopia' (which is certainly Orwell's main source of
information for his famine section) and note the use of 'human being' to
describe Gareth::

"Poor Gareth Jones must have been the most surprised human being alive
when the facts he so painstakingly garnered from our mouths were snowed under by
our denials."

[Lyons is referring to an episode when the American press corps combined to
'damn Jones' as a liar, in their suppression of the famine so as to be allowed
by the Soviets to cover the forthcoming trial of the British Metroivik engineers
- See Lyons full chapter; 'The Press Corps Conceals a Famine'
HERE.]

Now, consider what better name could Orwell have chosen for one of his actual
human beings in AF than 'Mr Jones'? However, Orwell uses the term human being 28
times in AF - 27 times are nothing to do with Gareth, unless of course you count
this one occurrence; 'The only good human being is a dead one.' But, if one
considers that Orwell started writing and formulating his ideas for AF at about
the same time as reviewing Lyons in 1938, and especially how important Lyons was
to Orwell, then Gareth as a 'human being' would have been to the fore in
Orwell's mind - Plus Lyons' sentence describing Gareth is a most damning one
which should be considered with Orwell's later essays concerning the suppression
of the press. [See here for a paper
arguing that Gareth Jones was actually behind the naming of Mr Jones the Farmer.]

Returning to the above Orwell's text, after
February 23rd, the Soviets prevented journalists from travelling
outside Moscow, so as to help conceal the famine from the outside world. Gareth was the only journalist to defy this ban – Muggeridge had
travelled to the Kuban region and Caucasus in mid February before it came into force. Gareth was quoted in his
30th March 1933 Berlin Press release: “His
[Jones] report explains the dislike of the Russian authorities to having
conditions in the Soviet investigated”. In
this case Gareth Jones is the primary human being who told the truth by exposing
the famine, which the Soviets called ‘lies’. Gareth reported in his 29th March 1933, Berlin Press Interview
of famine and disease: “Everywhere
I heard the cry: ‘There is no bread: we are dying.

The
Red Army was sent in to quell Ukrainian civil unrest. – From Gareth’s press
interview: “Soldiers warned me
against travelling by night, as there were too many desperate men about” and
“Mr. Jones saw famine on a huge scale and the revival of a murderous
terror”.

‘Bruder
in Not’ (Brothers in Need) - the Berlin religious charity gave the first
reports of cannibalism and infanticide. Also see Cardinal Innitzer who reported
famine in the NYT on 20th August 1933 http://www.garethjones.org/soviet_articles/innitzer.htm
where he states “Famine
conditions there are accompanied by such cruel phenomena of mass starvation as
infanticide and cannibalism.”

At
this time Stalin though leader, was not fully in control of the party and
realised if he did not act to hide the famine, there were factions of the party
who still had the power to oust him (e.g. Kirov) – as it was seen as his own
policy.

Enter
My Whymper to help conceal the famine. Whymper
at this juncture in the sentence above could be Walter Duranty of the NYT, in
his article denigrating Gareth Jones as a liar on 31st March 1933,
but it then becomes clear in the next paragraph that Orwell is alluding to
George Bernard Shaw.

Hitherto the
animals had had little or no contact with Whymper on his weekly visits: now,
however, a few selected animals, mostly sheep, were instructed to remark
casually in his hearing that rations had been increased. In addition. Napoleon
ordered the almost empty bins in the store-shed to be filled nearly to the brim
with sand, which was then covered up with what remained of the grain and meal.
On some suitable pretext Whymper was led through the store-shed and allowed to
catch a glimpse of the bins. He was deceived, and continued to report to the
outside world that there was no food shortage on Animal Farm.

Now
Whymper is most probably George Bernard Shaw who with Lord and Lady Astor were’
led by the nose’ to see model Collective farms in 1931, on the occasion of
Shaw’s 75th Birthday. As Gareth reported again in his March 1933 Berlin
press release: “After Dictator
Josef V. Stalin the starving Russians most hate George Bernard Shaw for his
accounts of their plentiful food.”
In ‘Experiences of Russia -1931 – A
Diary’ Jack Heinz II’s (of Ketchup fame) book based on Gareth’s notes, a Russian priest
is quoted: “Priest:
“What is wrong with George Bernard Shaw?Is he mad?He saw nothing at
all. If only he could see one-hundredth of what the peasants are suffering.It is unbelievable that he can be so easily fooled.”

In late August and early
September 1933, the 'red carpet treatment' was also afforded to the former
French Prime Minister, Edouard Herriot, who made a well-documented tour from
Odessa through Ukraine and North Caucasus. Edward Coote first secretary at the
British Embassy noted in a dispatch to the Foreign Office on 11th September
1933: "The red carpet treatment which the Soviet Government spread before the
feet of its distinguished guests has now become proverbial; and on this occasion
the Soviet authorities were at pains to see that the carpet was on extra width,
of splendid texture, of the deepest pile and most carefully brushed". Coote
continued: "... rigorous steps were taken to keep all undesirable elements
far removed from the streets and railway stations through which M. Herriot
passed, and extra rations of food, taken from the army reserve, and even clothes
were issued to the townspeople." I believe Orwell would have known about
Herriot's trip through reading chapter VI in Ewald Ammende's 1936 book
(published by George Allen & Unwin in London) "Human Life in Russia"
entitled "The Testimony of Monsieur Herriot".

Nevertheless, towards the end of January it became obvious that it would be
necessary to procure some more grain from somewhere. In these days Napoleon
rarely appeared in public, but spent all his time in the farmhouse, which was
guarded at each door by fierce-looking dogs. When he did emerge it was in a
ceremonial manner, with an escort of six dogs who closely surrounded him and
growled if anyone came too near. Frequently he did not even appear on Sunday
mornings, but issued his orders through one of the other pigs, usually Squealer.

The
first sentence reiterates that a famine was imminent, if the situation did not
change, which it didn’t… Though an alternative slant might be that world
grain prices fell even further in the globally depressed market, and for Stalin
to gain the same amount of hard currency he had to increase grain exports
further.

Stalin
may not have been seen in public remaining in the Kremlin (farmhouse) surrounded
by his OGPU bodyguards (dogs) but still issued decrees through Pravda
(Squealer) - Other readers of Orwell see Prime Minister Molotov as Squealer,
wishing to put an individual's name to the pig, instead of the concept of
propaganda, but either way by 1933, Stalin had achieved total control of the
Communist party and Squealer was merely issuing his decrees.

Sundays must allude to Stalin not resorting to prayers in the
Atheist state, whereas the peasants still di

One Sunday morning Squealer announced
that the hens, who had just come in to lay again, must surrender their eggs.
Napoleon had accepted, through Whymper, a contract for four hundred eggs a week.
The price of these would pay for enough grain and meal to keep the farm going
till summer came on and conditions were easier.

The
hens are clearly Ukrainians and Kulaks (richer independent farmers) – and may
allude to Ukrainians maintaining their religious beliefs. Again through Pravda,
it was decreed that Kulaks would be forced to work on Collectives and to hand
over their cattle.

Whymper
here, I believe becomes Duranty –
known at the time as the ‘Unofficial American Ambassador to Moscow’ who
spent 1933 trying to clear the political path for the USSR to be formally
recognised as a sovereign state by F.D. Roosevelt (Mr. FreDeRick as Orwell’s
relates to him in this chapter) –
even if that meant denying a famine. In November of 1933 Duranty was present
Foreign Commissar Litvinov at the White House as the USSR became formally
recognised. According to Duranty he was personally thanked first by FDR and
later in Moscow for his help in securing diplomatic recognition.

The
contract may allude to the easing of Stalin’s relations with the West where he
decided to up his exports of grain in exchange for hard currencies in order top
keep up his policy of Industrialisation. Also it was inconceivable to
‘rational’ minds in the West, why anyone would export further grain if it
weren’t a commodity in surplus – No-one would intentionally starve his own
people? Stalin was hoping he could ride out the ‘storm’ in the blind hope
that the next summer harvest would ease the famine crisis.

When the hens heard this they raised a terrible
outcry. They had been warned earlier that this sacrifice might be necessary, but
had not believed that it would really happen. They were just getting their
clutches ready for the spring sitting, and they protested that to take the eggs
away now was murder. For the first time since the expulsion of Jones there was
something resembling a rebellion. Led by three young Black Minorca pullets, the
hens made a determined effort to thwart Napoleon's wishes. Their method was to
fly up to the rafters and there lay their eggs, which smashed to pieces on the
floor. Napoleon acted swiftly and ruthlessly. He ordered the hens’ rations to
be stopped, and decreed that any animal giving so much as a grain of corn to a
hen should be punished by death. The dogs saw to it that these orders were
carried out. For five days the hens held out, then they capitulated and went
back to their nesting boxes. Nine hens had died in the meantime. Their bodies
were buried in the orchard, and it was given out that they had died of
coccidiosis. Whymper heard nothing of this affair, and the eggs were duly
delivered, a grocer's van driving up to the farm once a week to take them away.

This is the first time
that 'Jones'
is mentioned in the famine chapter, though from the context of Soviet history it
alludes to Tsar Nicholas, does this also possibly relate to Gareth Jones's own expulsion
- i.e. being personally banned by Foreign Commissar Litvinov from
ever returning to the USSR?

The
peasant farmers in Ukraine found the intended increased grain exports an
incredulous proposition, though they had read about it in the Soviet Press. They
didn’t believe it to be a reality.

In
the spring the kulak’s kept seed back for sowing – even though eating it
would have temporarily put off their hunger, but would then result in no future
harvest. The Young Reds (Komsomols) and the OGPU were sent to ensure that grain
was taken away for the factory workers.

“[Napoleon] ordered the hens’
rations to be stopped, and decreed that any animal giving so much as a
grain of corn to a hen should be punished by death.” Stalin decreed that
kulaks who protested were murdered
in their seizing of the grain. On this point, Gareth wrote in the Western Mail
on the 8th April 1933:

“But the Russian peasant in one respect is no
different from the Welsh farmer. He wants his own land, and if his land is
taken away from him he will not work. The passive resistance of the peasant has
been a stronger factor than all the speeches of Stalin.

CATTLE SEIZED

In the second place, the cow was taken
away from the peasant. Imagine what would happen in the Vale of Glamorgan
or in Cardiganshire if the county councils took away the cows of the farmers!
The cattle were to be owned in common, and cared for in common by the collective
farms. Many of the cattle were seized and, put into vast State cattle
factories.

The result of this policy
was a widespread massacre of cattle by the peasants, who did not wish to
sacrifice their property for nothing. Another result was that on these
State cattle factories, which were entirely unprepared and had not enough sheds, innumerable livestock died of
exposure and epidemics. Horses died from lack of fodder. The livestock of
the Soviet Union foreign experts in Moscow.

In the third place, six or seven millions of the best farmers (i.e., the Kulaks)
in Russia have been uprooted and have been exiled with a barbarity which is not
realised in Britain. Although two years ago the Soviet Government claimed
that the Kulak had been, destroyed, the savage drive against the better peasant
continued with increased violence last winter. It was
the aim of the Bolsheviks to destroy the Kulaks as a class, because they were
“the capitalists of the village.”

As
for the three Minorca Pullets – Could it possibly be Redens, Kosior and Chubar?
Though one must ask how Orwell would have known at the time? Anyway, taken from
James Mace’s article: “Is the Ukrainian Genocide a Myth?” HOLODOMOR: THE UKRAINIAN GENOCIDE, 1932-1933. Holodomor 70th
Anniversary Commemorative Edition. Canadian American Slavic Studies Journal:

“Consider a private letter of September 11, 1932, from Stalin
to Kaganovich, recently published from the personal archives of Lazar Kaganovich:
September 11, 1932:

“The main thing is now Ukraine. Matters in Ukraine are now
extremely bad. Bad from the standpoint of the Party line. They say that there
are two oblasts of Ukraine (Kyiv and Dnipropetrovs'k, it seems) where almost 50
"raikomy" {district Party committees} have come out against the plan
of grain procurements, considering them unrealistic. In other "raikomy,"
they confirm, the matter is no better. What does this look like? This is no
party, but a parliament, a caricature of a parliament. Instead of directing the
districts, Kosior is always waffling between the directives of the CC VKP(b) and
the demands of the district Party committees and waffled to the end. Lenin was
right, when he said that a person who lacks the courage at the necessary moment
to go against the current cannot be a real Bolshevik leader. Bad from the
standpoint of the Soviet {state} line. Chubar is no leader. Bad from the
standpoint of the GPU. Redens lacks the energy to direct the struggle with the
counterrevolution in such a big and unique republic as Ukraine.

If we do not now correct the situation in Ukraine, we could lose Ukraine.

Consider that Pilsudski is not daydreaming, and his agents in Ukraine are much
stronger than Redens or Kosior imagine. Also consider that within the Ukrainian
Communist Party (500,000 members, ha, ha) there are not a few (yes, not a few!)
rotten elements that are conscious or unconscious Petliura adherents and in the
final analysis agents of Pilsudski. If the situation gets any worse, these
elements won't hesitate to open a front within (and outside) the Party, against
the Party. Worst of all, the Ukrainian leadership doesn't see these dangers. Set
yourself the task of turning Ukraine in the shortest possible time into a
fortress of the USSR, into the most inalienable republic. Don't worry about
money for this purpose.

The
relevance of laying the eggs in the rafters and breaking refers to the peasants
hiding their grain and rather than giving up their cattle to the collective at
no recompense they destroyed instead (no doubt eating the meat themselves).

According to Yaralsaw Chelak,
one should consider: "and there lay their eggs,
which smashed to pieces" as a reference to Duranty's famous
phrase used in his denigration of Gareth Jones on 31/3/33: "But---to
put it brutally---you can't make an omelette without
breaking eggs, and the Bolshevist leaders are just as indifferent to the
casualties that may be involved in their drive toward socializaton."

The
OGPU / Red Army was sent in and ruthlessly terrorised the peasants – hiding
grain then became a capital punishment. Stalin would force collectivisation
through – and eventually in succeed, and even it meant sending the kulaks to
Siberia. - Those who remained eventually all worked in the Collective farms
after 5 months of terror.

‘Nine
hens’
obviously relates to a guesstimate of 9 million deaths from murder or
starvation.

Duranty belittled Gareth on 31st
March stating that: “…he
[Jones] had seen no dead or dying animals or human beings”. To
which Gareth replied on the 13th May in NYT:
“Mr. Duranty says that I saw in the villages no dead human beings nor animals.
That is true, but one does not need a particularly nimble brain to grasp that
even in the Russian famine districts the dead are buried and that there the dead
animals are devoured.”

In
the same sentence it is written “and it was given out that they had died of coccidiosis”, which directly refers to
Gareth’s public spat with Duranty – Duarnty wrote on the 31st
March: “there is widespread
mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.” And to which Gareth replied:
“Journalists, on the other hand, are allowed to write, but the censorship has
turned them into masters of euphemism and understatement. Hence they give
“famine” the polite name of “food shortage” and “starving to
death” is softened down to read as “widespread mortality from diseases due
to malnutrition.”

The
final sentence of Orwell’s paragraph mentions Whymper again, partly as Duranty
where he ‘knew nothing’ of an on-going famine, but also relates to the
Western customers of the grain who still got their deliveries as promised.

An alternative
suggestion for the sentence might be, according to Cheryl Madden (editor of the
Canadian-American Slavic Studies "Holodomor: The Ukrainian Genocide
1932-33" and author of the Bibliography, available online at: www.shevchenko.org/famine), that the grocery vans were actually used by the Soviets OGPU
and later during the Great Purges by the NKVD to take away those arrested,
especially in the cities. The number of those arrested was so great that it
was feared that the people might rebel if they could so easily sum up the
numbers of those arrested by counting prison vans operating throughout the city.
So, rather than use the better-known "Black Maria's," or regular
prison vans, bread trucks/vans were commonly used as prison vehicles.

The number
of these vans also served to deceive observers (especially those
foreigners who might have seen them in the streets) by disguising the
prevalent food shortages, since Soviet officials could point out the number
of "bread" vans to seemingly verify that all was well with the
food supply situation. The fact was, however, that the interiors of
these vans were altered to make them functional as for taking prisoners
away.

To
end this analysis I include Gareth’s last words written on the Soviet Union in
1933 from a Daily Express article entitled “Good-Bye Russia” published on
the 11th April:

“‘What then is
the lesson of Soviet Russia?’

It
is that a State cannot live upon the doctrine of class warfare and that the
ideas we have in Britain of personal freedom and of the rights of each
individual man are not so far wrong and must be defended at all costs.”

-----------------------------

From
here onwards in the chapter VII, Orwell mainly relates to Trotsky and the Moscow
Show trials, with a possible inference to Gareth’s friend and colleague, Paul
Scheffer, the first journalist (of the Berliner Tageblatt) to be banned in 1929,
for his anti-Stalinist reporting, later being accused in the Third Bukharin Show
Trial of 1938 of being the leader of a Nazi Spy ring involved with the sabotage
of Soviet grain – whilst he was editor of the Berliner Tageblatt – but that
is another story… (http://www.uanews.tv/archives/famine/holodomor7.htm)

All this while no more had been seen
of Snowball. He was rumoured to be hiding on one of the neighbouring farms,
either Foxwood or Pinchfield. Napoleon was by this time on slightly better terms
with the other farmers than before. It happened that there was in the yard a
pile of timber which had been stacked there ten years earlier when a beech
spinney was cleared. It was well seasoned, and Whymper had advised Napoleon to
sell it; both Mr Pilkington and Mr Frederick were anxious to buy it. Napoleon
was hesitating between the two, unable to make up his mind. It was noticed that
whenever he seemed on the point of coming to an agreement with Frederick,
Snowball was declared to be in hiding at Foxwood, while when he inclined towards
Pilkington, Snowball was said to be at Pinchfield.

Suddenly, early in the spring, an alarming thing was
discovered. Snowball was secretly frequenting the farm by night! The animals
were so disturbed that they could hardly sleep in their stalls. Every night, it
was said, he came creeping in under cover of darkness and performed all kinds of
mischief. He stole the corn, he upset the milk-pails, he broke the eggs, he
trampled the seed-beds, he gnawed the bark off the fruit trees. Whenever
anything went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball. If a window was
broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had
come in the night and done it, and when the key of the stores-shed was lost the
whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it down the well. Curiously
enough they went on believing this even after the mislaid key was found under a
sack of meal. The cows declared unanimously that Snowball crept into their stalk
and milked them in their sleep. The rats, which had been troublesome that
winter, were also said to be in league with Snowball….

Contributors:

Nigel Linsan Colley

Cheryl Madden

Yaroslaw Chelak

With sincere thanks to the late Dr. James Mace for his
continued support in this project, academic help and welcomed praise for my
research in compiling the above document:

I too think that identifying the three pullets is pushing
it a bit much. Even Arthur Koestler, who was living in Kharkiv at the time,
could not have picked this out of the daily press.

On the whole, I think it is an excellent piece of detective
work that not only does your uncle's memory credit but also helps those who
study Orwell.

Best wishes to you and Siriol,

Jim

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